


purple like an early bruise

by gooseberry



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, Insanity, Mpreg, World of Ruin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-06 23:28:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20515268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gooseberry/pseuds/gooseberry
Summary: “Okay,” Prompto says. “So hear me out.”“What.” Gladio sounds unamusedanduninterested, but he’s sitting down and he’s mostly listening. He’s at least listening enough to, like, sound unamused and uninterested. That’s a good thing.Prompto clears his throat. “So I know it might, y’know, sound kinda crazy, and seriously! I thought it was crazy, too! At first, I mean. I definitely thought it was crazy. That I was crazy. But I think that, uh. I mean, crazier things have happened, right? Like, uh, like hanging out with the Astrals? Totally crazy, right? And—”“Prompto,” Gladio interrupts in that almost-shouty-but-not-quite voice he gets sometimes. Prompto snaps his mouth shut hard, and the snap has his teeth aching. “Just tell me.”“Right.” Prompto clears his throat again. “Right. Okay. So, uh. So I think Ignis might be pregnant? Yeah.”





	purple like an early bruise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saisei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saisei/gifts).

“Okay,” Prompto says. “So hear me out.” 

“What.” Gladio sounds unamused _and_ uninterested, but he’s sitting down and he’s mostly listening. He’s at least listening enough to, like, sound unamused and uninterested. That’s a good thing. 

Prompto clears his throat. “So I know it might, y’know, sound kinda crazy, and seriously! I thought it was crazy, too! At first, I mean. I definitely thought it was crazy. That I was crazy. But I think that, uh. I mean, crazier things have happened, right? Like, uh, like hanging out with the Astrals? Totally crazy, right? And—”

“Prompto,” Gladio interrupts in that almost-shouty-but-not-quite voice he gets sometimes. Prompto snaps his mouth shut hard, and the snap has his teeth aching. “Just tell me.”

“Right.” Prompto clears his throat again. “Right. Okay. So, uh. So I think Ignis might be pregnant? Yeah.”

x

So here’s the thing: Prompto knows exactly how crazy all of this sounds. 

Like, Ignis is a dude. A bro. A dudebro. And he’s a dudebro with a penis. Prompto knows, because Prompto’s seen it, which isn’t, like, weird. He’s seen most of his male, dudebros’ penises, whether in gym or in training or, like, whenever. Changing and shit. And maybe if Ignis had only remained Noct’s advisor-slash-servant-slash-bff-slash-whatever-else-they-have-going-on, Prompto wouldn’t have ever seen Ignis’s penis, but. Well. They’re friends now, too. Him and Ignis, that is. And also, there was the whole road-trip thing. They spent months living in close proximity, usually in a tent, which meant a lot of junk got flashed. That’s just how things worked. So yeah, Prompto has seen Ignis’s junk before, and Ignis’s junk is of the penis-variety, which—uh, well, the penis-variety isn’t the baby-making variety. Not on the pregnancy side of things, that is. 

So all that said, Prompto gets why Gladio immediately rolls his eyes and starts to stand up, because if someone had said the same thing to him, he probably would’ve done the same. Like, _Hahah, yeah, okay, good one, dude. Almost got me there._ And if Prompto had rolled his eyes and gotten up and walked away, Prompto would’ve been _wrong_, and he’s not gonna let Gladio be wrong. He really, really needs Gladio to not be wrong on this. For all of them to not be wrong on this. Holy shit. 

“No!” he yelps, lunging across the table to grab Gladio’s arm and drag him back down into his seat—or to at least _try_ to drag him back down into his seat, because Gladio’s built like a brick house and there’s not much Prompto can do to manhandle him. “No, dude!” 

He winces, darting a glance to the bedroom door where Ignis is probably sleeping, like pregnant people do? He guesses? He lowers his voice, hissing, “Dude, no. Just. Listen to me, you promised you’d listen to me.” 

Here’s one of the great things about Gladio: He’s really serious about keeping his promises, even when the promises are dumbass things, or when he’s just promising shit to humor you, or whatever. It doesn’t matter how he feels about it, though; once he’s promised something, he’s pretty much always gonna keep that promise, even if it physically pains him, like it’s apparently physically paining him now. Prompto can _see_ how much Gladio wants to brush him off and take off, and he can _see_ how Gladio’s just resigning himself to whatever crazy shit Prompto’s on. Yeah, Gladio’s a good bro.

“Fine,” Gladio says, shaking Prompto off his arm, then sitting back down in the chair with a world-weary sigh. “Ignis is pregnant. Why—” He gestures vaguely, like he’s too confused to even try to sort any of it out. “Why do you say that?”

“Thanks,” Prompto says. “I get it sounds crazy, just hear me out. Just—” When Gladio lifts his eyebrows at him, looking really done, Prompto grimaces, trying to cut the chase. “It’s just, like, all these things, okay? So first,” he counts on his finger, “he was sick for a while, remember? Kept throwing up and stuff, right?”

“Food at the hunter camps is shit,” Gladio interrupts, which: Fair, but not the point. Prompto ignores him, barreling on:

“For months, right? And he’s still sick sometimes—I know he tries to hide it from you, but he’s still puking, just not as much. And second,” he ticks another finger, “he’s been gaining weight. Which is kinda weird if he’s throwing everything up, but he is. His trousers don’t fit him anymore. I know, I saw—like, he was tying them shut. And he hasn’t tucked in his shirts for weeks, Gladio.”

Gladio is frowning at him now, looking concerned and actually thoughtful, like maybe he thinks Prompto has a point, which is. Uh. Kinda nice, but also horrifying, because to be completely honest, Prompto was really hoping that Gladio would have a reasonable explanation for all of Prompto’s crazy, nightmare-ish thoughts. Maybe he still will. Hopefully he still will.

“It’s ‘cause of his stomach,” Prompto explains pointlessly. “That’s why he’s not tucking in his shirts, ‘cause he’s getting fat. And, um, third is—third is that he’s sleeping all the time, right? I mean, not _all_ the time, but a lot. He’s always sleeping in, and he goes to bed early, and he’s taking naps all the time, and like—Gladio, he’s sleeping right now. He’s been sleeping since I came home, and that was hours ago.”

“He’s depressed,” Gladio says a little slowly, like he’s working out an equation out loud. “Lots of people are. Hell, almost everyone is. Look, Prompto, maybe Iggy’s acting weird, but all of us are. We’re dealing with shit none of us expected, and—”

“That’s not all,” Prompto continues, talking over Gladio. “Look, it’s just—I know it sounds crazy, but I swear it makes sense, all of it together. And if you’d just stick around for a while—just _stay_ here, so you can see him, and you’ll get it. It’s like—sometimes he touches his stomach, like—like how pregnant ladies do, okay? And sometimes I can hear him talking in the other room, and I know there’s no one else there, okay? But he’s talking to someone, and I think he’s talking to the, uh. The. The baby? 

“I don’t know,” he says, feeling his face flush hot, then grow cold; his eyes are burning, and he really, really doesn’t want to cry, because he just wants Gladio to listen to him, and to get it, and to _stay_. To _help_ him, because Prompto’s feeling like he’s living in a horror movie with Ignis, who’s already lost his mind. Fuck. “Whatever it is. But there’s something going on, Gladio, okay? There’s something weird going on, and I don’t get what it is, and it’s freaking me out, and I can’t—” His voice cracks, and Gladio is blurring in front of him. Fuck, he doesn’t want to cry. “I can’t do this by myself, okay?”

His voice cracks again, right on the last word, and he can feel his heart just start to crumple again, giving out under the weight of all the sheer wrongness he’s been living with the last couple months. He covers his face with his hands, digging his palms into his eyes like that’ll stop the tears from welling up.

“Shit,” he hears Gladio say. “Okay. I can stay here for a couple days, see what’s going on. Hey,” Gladio says, and his hand is warm and heavy when it comes down to rest on Prompto’s shoulder, “it’s gonna be fine, ‘kay? Promise.”

x

The whole Ignis Watch thing was Gladio’s idea, because it was Gladio who first noticed that Ignis was very much Not Okay after Gralea and Ardyn and the Crystal. It’s not really surprising, of course, since Gladio and Ignis have known each other for almost as long as they’ve known Noct. It makes sense that Gladio would pick up on things, even if they were tiny and pretty much inconsequential. Whatever it was, it was enough that a couple months after Noct went into the Crystal, Gladio told Prompto that they were gonna do a whole divide-and-conquer routine: Gladio would go out with Sania and Vyv to get whatever Ignis wanted; Prompto would hang out in Lestallum, making sure Ignis kept out of trouble and was kept out of trouble so he could get shit done. 

Gladio hadn’t said it in the exact words, not like, _Make sure he doesn’t make himself go crazy_ or _Keep him from wandering into a voretooth’s teeth_ or whatever, but it’d felt really heavily implied, like, _Take care of him, Prompto, because he’s not gonna take care of himself._ And Gladio was probably right about that.

Prompto’s tried to look back on the first couple weeks and months after Gralea, especially in the last little while, when things started to get weird. Some of the things he thinks he’s noticed, months later, are definitely due to hindsight being 20-20; other things—well, when it comes to other things, he wonders how much of it is confirmation bias, or just unreliable memories. 

Here are the things he knows for sure: (1) Ardyn kidnapped Ignis and dragged him to Gralea, and it took the rest of them almost a week to catch up. (2) Ignis had the shit more or less beat of him when they found him, and he also kinda turning to ash? But Noct fixed that, so that’s good. (3) And then Noct went into the Crystal, and then Raven finally caught up with them by the Crystal, and then they took the Crystal and headed out. (4) Now they’re alive, and Noct is stuck in the Crystal, and Ignis is going crazy. No, that’s not a for-sure thing. They’re alive, and Noct is stuck in the Crystal, and (5) they have less than ten years to fix things so Noct doesn’t die when he comes back. Okay. Those are the for-sures.

Here are the things he is pretty sure about: (1) Ignis is going crazy. Like, talking to someone else who’s not himself crazy. (2) Ardyn probably bad-touched him, because Ignis seems kinda flinchy sometimes? But maybe it’s just Prompto who’s getting all flinchy. (3) Ignis seems to know how to fix things so Noct won’t die, and it involves—well, Prompto’s not sure. Ancient ruins? Stuff carved on the walls in ancient ruins? Ignis seems to know. Maybe. (4) Gladio trusts Ignis to take care of things for Noct, but he doesn’t trust Ignis to take care of himself, which is why Prompto’s been left here in Lestallum, which Ignis, who—as previously noted—is probably going crazy.

And then there are all the things he has no fucking clue about, but he thinks are real and not him going crazy: (1) Ignis talks in his sleep sometimes, loud enough that Prompto wakes up. (2) Sometimes it feels like someone’s watching him, or the apartment, or both? But he doesn’t know if it’s actually someone else, or maybe if it’s just Ignis, because there are definitely times he looks up and Ignis is just, y’know, doing a hundred-yard stare straight through Prompto. So there’s that. (3) Ignis is sick a lot, of the throwing-up variety, but he’s also gaining weight and has a growing gut, and he also touched his gut, and all of it makes Prompto think that he’s losing his damn mind and Ignis is pregnant. (4) It feels like Prompto hasn’t slept in a year, even though he’s sleeping every night, and if Ignis feels half as tired as Prompto, then Prompto can’t blame him for sleeping most of the time.

And okay. When he actually lists things out, it’s not like things are any more clear than before. Life just feels like a clusterfuck right now, and Prompto is so confused and tired and stressed that he wants to cry for a month and then sleep for a year. A month and a half on Ignis Watch has been enough to wear him down to his bones, and he wants to be a good bro. He wants to be a dependable friend, who’s supportive and trustworthy and shit, but he also wants to just tap out. He wants it to be Gladio’s turn, just so he can get away from this apartment and all his racing, irrational thoughts. 

x

“Gladio,” Ignis says when he wakes up from his afternoon nap and makes it out to the dining room-slash-kitchen. He looks surprised to see Gladio, which is good—that means he didn’t overhear Prompto’s hysterical confession earlier. Yeah, that’s good. Prompto slouches lower in his seat, watching Ignis and Gladio.

Gladio’s turning in his seat, grinning at Ignis like there’s nothing wrong and saying, “Hey, Iggy. I’ve got some photos and notes from Vyv. He wants you to look it over, see if it makes a difference where we go next.”

This, Prompto is sure, is all a lie. Gladio had seemed more ready to dump the photos and take off again, up until Prompto word-vomited all his feelings all over him. If Ignis notices that Gladio’s lying, though, he doesn’t give any sign of it. Which would be stranger, Iggy-wise? For Ignis to notice but not saying anything, or for Ignis not to notice to begin with? Both feel wrong. Everything feels wrong. 

“I’ll look over them after dinner,” Ignis tells Gladio, coming to stand beside the table. “Any requests? We don’t have anything fancy, but we have eggs, and Prompto managed to get us a bit of meat yesterday.”

“Yeah?” Gladio asks, looking too cheerful and too unconcerned. Prompto kinda wants to kick him. 

“Mmm,” Ignis hums, moving past the table and to the fridge. “How about a cutlet? There should be enough for all three of us, and there are some vegetables for side dishes. I think there are still some peppers….”

From the table, and knowing what to look for, it’s easy to catch the little tells, to see the little things: the curve of Ignis’s stomach when he turns to grab something; the little bit of string holding his trousers shut when he reaches for the rice on top of the cupboards; the way he brushes his hands over his stomach again and again and again.

Prompto finds half his attention taken by Gladio; he can’t keep himself from looking over at Gladio, trying to gauge what Gladio is seeing, what Gladio is thinking, what Gladio is going to do. It’s like Ignis breathes, and Prompto’s reaction is to turn to Gladio, wanting to ask, _See? See? What do you think?_ Whatever Gladio’s thinking, though, he’s a closed book, all the way through dinner and afterward. He chats with Ignis, all cool and shit, like nothing’s going on, and it’s still early when Prompto has to leave the room, too stressed to sit at the table any longer. 

“Going to bed?” Gladio asks as Prompto stands up from the table. “Already?”

“I’m tired,” Prompto says, trying to keep his voice as normal as he can. Ignis is frowning up at him, looking concerned, and Prompto tries to smile. The result feels miserable, thin and strained and obviously fake. “See you in the morning?”

“See you in the morning,” Ignis echoes after him, and Prompto hightails it from the room before he can see Ignis touch his stomach again. 

He strips down and brushes his teeth, then crawls into his bed, pulling the scratchy sheet up over him. He can feel tears begin to leak from his eyes, and he’s not sure why; he’s right, isn’t he? But he doesn’t want to be right. He doesn’t want to live in the apartment full of things he doesn’t understand, in a world he’ll never understand. He’s tired of the bizarre and the impossible, of reality turning on its head just because someone tells it to. He just wants things to go back to normal, for the world to change back to how it’d been before Lucis had fallen.

x

He wakes up in the middle of the night, confused and still half-asleep, not really sure what woke him. 

“No,” Ignis hisses from the other bed, “I didn’t.” 

Oh. Ignis is sleep-talking again. Prompto squints at the tiny bedroom window, trying to determine what time it is. It’s pretty dark, which means it could be, eh, pretty much any time before nine or ten am. He could roll over and grab his phone, check the clock, but he doesn’t want to risk waking up Ignis.

“I didn’t,” Ignis says again, sounding more aggrieved. His words are always pretty clear, even when he’s asleep. Prompto wonders who Ignis is arguing with in his dream. The Council? Noct? Ardyn? If it were Ardyn, though, wouldn’t that make it a nightmare? He’s too tired to worry about this. 

Ignis groans, but the sound cuts off abruptly, and there is a flurry of sounds behind Prompto: fabric rustling and bedsprings squeaking, then hurried footsteps leaving the room. The faint click of a door, then the sound of Ignis throwing up in the bathroom. Just another night, nothing new here. Prompto rolls over in his bed, grabbing his phone and squinting when its screen brightens. 3:07 am. 

He wonders if Gladio woke up, if he’s lying on the couch listening to Ignis puke up dinner. He wonders—no. He’s tired. He’s too tired for this. He should be way too tired for this. He rolls back over and pulls the sheet back up over his head, hoping that he’ll be asleep when Ignis comes back to bed. 

x

Gladio is true to his word. He hangs around for the rest of the week, going over photos and info with Ignis, helping Iris train, doing odd tasks around Lestallum. He doesn’t talk to Prompto about Ignis, or about what’s going on, or about anything at all, really, which is fine. It’s fair. It’s just enough that Gladio’s even here, that he even listened to Prompto sound really crazy. Like, just the fact that Gladio didn’t turn and walk right back out? Yeah. He’s a good dude, so this is fine. 

Since Gladio’s here and has presumably taken over the Ignis Watch, Prompto takes the opportunity just to get out. He spends as much time as he can outside the apartment, running errands and helping out at the construction sites and just bumming around. It feels kinda overwhelming, this weird freedom he’s testing out. He can’t get rid of his thoughts about Ignis, but he can shove them to the back of his head and bury them under other things—under the chance to talk to other people, to worry about other problems, to just think about other things. 

He’s still chained, though. He still goes back to the apartment in the evening, and when he walks in and sees Ignis, it’s like an electrical shock tearing through him, lighting his bones on fire and turning his joints to stone. Something is wrong. Ignis is wrong. Ignis is changing day-by-day, fast enough that it feels like Prompto can see it, like those mushrooms that grow feet in only a couple days. If Prompto stayed in the apartment, watching Ignis, would he see the changes? Each time he blinked, would it be like another shot in a time lapse? 

“Hey, Prompto,” Gladio says, punching Prompto in the shoulder. Prompto lets himself move with it, staggering to the table and sinking into his chair. 

“Hey,” Prompto answers, his voice sounding frayed. He clears his throat and asks, “You get much done?”

“We did,” Ignis says, looking up from the photos he’s been examining. Does his face look paler? His eyes seem darker. Are they? Maybe not. Maybe Prompto just needs to close his eyes. “Are you alright, Prompto? You look pale.”

“‘M fine,” he mumbles, burying his face in his arms on the table. “Just tired. Sorry.”

Ignis sounds uncertain, but he doesn’t pry. Maybe Prompto shouldn’t be prying, either. Maybe Prompto’s just losing his mind. He can feel his head pound, and he wonders when his headache began. Just now? Earlier? God, how can he be so tired? He doesn’t remember feeling this tired when he was outside. 

He lets Gladio’s and Ignis’s voices wash over him, the words breaking and fragmenting like a kaleidoscope. There’s another ruin that Gladio will need to visit, more walls for Vyv to take photos of. Where’s Sania, Prompto wonders; will she go with them? He wants to go with them. Shouldn’t Ignis want to go? Why doesn’t Ignis want to go? Ignis should’ve been the first to be out there. Why hadn’t any of them noticed that? They should all be tagging after Ignis, not doing this—bringing things home to Ignis, to this tiny, shitty apartment Ignis never seems to leave anymore. How have things changed so much in such a short time?

“Omelets?” Ignis’s voice asks, breaking over Prompto’s shoulders, and Prompto shivers as Gladio says, “Sure, sounds good.”

Prompto turns his head and cracks open his eyes. Ignis is reaching into the fridge. Like this, from the side, Ignis looks like a stranger, and oh. Maybe that’s it. Maybe that is kernel of all of Prompto’s fear and hurt and confusion. Ignis, as he is now, is a stranger; he’s not the guy Prompto knew before Altissia, or even just a few months ago. This person has Ignis’s name and voice and face, but there’s something strange and uncanny about him, something that is unfamiliar and ultimately unknowable, something that makes the basest part of Prompto’s brain sit up and take notice and _panic_.

“What are you doing?” He can feel his mouth shape the words, and he can hear his voice say them; they’re still distant from him, though, like it’s someone else talking. 

Ignis straightens and turns toward him, looking puzzled. “I’m making dinner,” he tells Prompto. “I thought omelets—”

“I don’t,” Prompto interrupts, feeling a tear slide down the side of his face, “understand what’s going on. What’s happening to you?”

Ignis stops looking puzzled, which makes everything feel far worse. He doesn’t look upset, either, or concerned. He just looks blank, and maybe a little tired. There’s cheese in his hand; he reaches back to set it on the counter, never looking away from Prompto. Prompt wants to close his eyes, wants to cover his face with his hands, wants to go to bed and pull the sheet up over his head. What the fuck is any of this. Why is this his life.

“Prompto—”

“What happened to you?” Prompto asks, lifting his head from his arms. His voice is rising, going high and shrill and loud, but he can’t stop it. He doesn’t want to stop it. “What the fuck is—look at yourself!” He waves his hand helplessly at Ignis, at this person that used to be Ignis and now should be Ignis but doesn’t seem like Ignis. “What the fuck—what the fuck _is_ this?! What the fuck is going on?!”

Ignis looks away from Prompto, glancing to the side. Prompto follows his line of sight, and sees Gladio sitting on the other side of the table, watching them carefully. Fuck, Prompto wants to kick him again; wants to flip the table and demand—he’s not sure what. That Gladio side with him, probably. That Gladio back him up. That Gladio fix things. That Gladio do anything at all.

Prompto turns back to Ignis, asking, “What did he do to you?”

Ignis’s face changes then: his jaw clenches tight, and the cords in his neck stand out. The moment passes, though, and Ignis’s face is blank again, like nothing of significance is happening. “I don’t know what horrors you’ve imagined,” Ignis begins to say, “but—”

“You’re a man,” Prompto interrupts again. Ignis almost looks startled.

“I am.”

“With a dick. And balls.”

“Yes.” Ignis’s tone sounds cautious, like he’s no longer pretending he doesn’t know where this is going. Maybe that’s why Prompto goes for broke:

“You’re pregnant, though.”

Ignis’s face changes again, his jaw clenching again, and his face beginning to flush red. His eyes dart to the side, away from Prompto and away from Gladio. “Don’t be ridicu—”

“Bullshit,” Gladio says, and Prompto watches Ignis look toward Gladio, then just as quickly look away. “What the fuck did he do to you?”

Ignis seems to catch himself just as he’s about to touch his stomach. He goes still, his hand resting a few inches from his stomach; his face is growing pale again, the flush draining away. The blankness of his face is draining away, too, leaving behind an exhausted-looking resignation as he lowers his hand the last few inches to rest on his stomach. 

“He didn’t do anything I didn’t ask for. Gladio,” Ignis asks, his voice and his face and his whole body resigned, “how could I choose not to save Noct?”


End file.
